Most Precious Thing

Little Bear is looking for the most precious thing in the world. She finds a beautiful blue stone, a fluffy feather and a soft rose, but Mummy Bear says she can think of something even more precious. What could it be?

2022 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction Shortlist A humorous coming-of-age novel-in-stories and a sharp-edged look at how silence can shape a life, from the winner of the Journey Prize. A Chatelaine Summer Reads pick. “But wait, what happened to the girl?” “I don’t know,” I say. I don’t tell him that what will happen to her is what happens to every girl. Bright, hilarious, and sensitive fourteen-year-old Nina doesn’t say anything when her best friend begins to pull away, or when her crush on her English teacher intensifies. She doesn’t say anything when her mother tries to match her up with local Halifax Indian boys unfamiliar with her Saved by the Bell references, or when her worried father starts reciting Hindu prayers outside her bedroom door. (“How can your dad be happy when his only daughter is unsettled?”) And she won’t speak of the incident in high school that changes the course of her life. The Most Precious Substance on Earth tells stories of Nina’s life from the nineties to present day, when she returns to the classroom as a high school teacher with a haunting secret. And whether she’s pushing herself to deliver speeches at Toastmasters meetings, struggling through her MFA program, enduring the indignities of online dating, or wrestling with how to best guide her students, she will discover that the past is never far behind her. Darkly funny, deeply moving, unsettling, and at times even shocking, Shashi Bhat’s irresistible novel-in-stories examines the fraught relationships between those who take and those who have something taken. The Most Precious Substance on Earth is a sharp-edged and devastating look at how women are conditioned to hide their trauma and suppress their fear, loneliness, and anger, and an unforgettable portrait of how silence can shape a life.

Amidst the hardships of the 1920s, one young woman's happiness is threatened for ever because of one dramatic night... In The Most Precious Thing, Rita Bradshaw weaves a spell-binding saga of family, second chances and true love. Perfect for fans of Cathy Sharp and Dilly Court. 'A gratifying book... Intensely powerful' - North Wales Chronicle It's 1925 and when Renee McDarmount marries Walter Sutton, Carrie McDarmount is delighted, for the two families have always been close - the children are all similar in age and their fathers work together in the local pit. But an incident on the eve of the wedding leaves Carrie pregnant and desperately ashamed of the secret she now carries. When David Sutton, who has always loved Carrie, discovers her plight, he volunteers to marry her and bring up the baby as his own. But their secret will inevitably come out in the end and there is much heartache ahead before Carrie can finally be happy and content with the man she loves. What readers are saying about The Most Precious Thing: 'Rita Bradshaw has a way of weaving a tapestry of stories that are all interlaced and grab your attention at the outset... The author is very good at describing the surroundings and atmosphere of the period, that you almost feel you are there and can feel and smell what she is describing to you' 'Rita Bradshaw brings to life the poverty, the living conditions (you can almost smell the coal dust) and the despair of the general strike... As you turn the pages you actually feel that you are visiting the North East mining community and reliving the general strike. Add to this the lifelike characters and the story of Carrie's battle with adversity. The best book that Rita Bradshaw has written to date' 'A wonderful book I just could not put down. Rita kept me enthralled in the story from start to finish'

From the New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Take the Long Way Home comes a moving memoir about how the women’s movement revolutionized and saved her life, from the 1960s to the Me Too era. In a voice as candid as it is evocative, Gail Caldwell traces a path from her west Texas girlhood through her emergence as a young daredevil, then as a feminist—a journey that reflected seismic shifts in the culture itself. Caldwell’s travels took her to California and Mexico and dark country roads, and the dangers she encountered were rivaled only by the personal demons she faced. Bright Precious Thing is the captivating story of a woman’s odyssey, her search for adventure giving way to something more profound: the evolution of a writer and a woman, a struggle to embrace one’s life as a precious thing. Told against a contrasting backdrop of the present day, including the author’s friendship with a young neighborhood girl, Bright Precious Thing unfolds with the same heart and narrative grace of Caldwell’s Let’s Take the Long Way Home, called “a lovely gift to readers” by The Washington Post. Bright Precious Thing is a book about finding, then protecting, what we cherish most.

How do you define yourself when others have already decided who you are? Six years ago, when Camden Daniels came back from war without his younger brother, no one in the small town of Alba, Colorado, would forgive him—especially his father. He left, swearing never to return. But a desperate message from his father brings it all back. The betrayal. The pain. And the need to go home again. But home is where the one person he still loves is waiting. Willow. The one woman he can never have, because there are secrets buried in Alba that are best left in the dark... Great and Precious Things is a heart-wrenching forbidden romance about family, betrayal, and ultimately how far we’re willing to go on behalf of those we love and who need us most.

Success, wealth, respect are never enough. Until her. She sees a man, not his reputation or disability. Will she stay when even his name is a lie? Benjamin Prescott Roth is his own man. Everything he has -- possessions, wealth, prestige, recognition for his accomplishments -- he earned. On his own. His deafness never defined him, but his father's rejection did. "You'll never amount to anything..." Every accomplishment has been to prove his father wrong. Then Jewell Kincaid is hired as his assistant and puts him in his place, and Benjamin Roth is a lost man. Jewell is breathtaking, feisty, intelligent, independent, and so much more than an assistant to him. She is everything Benjamin needs, but never knew he wanted. She gets past his walls without even trying. She makes him happy. But the fantasy can only last so long. When the foundation of his life crumbles, Jewell is there. Holding his hand. If his life is a lie, if every battle has been for nothing, if he can't accept who he really is, how can she? When the truth is a lie, what is there to offer her?

Love is the only hope. It is only because of love that man finds it possible to reach god. If there were no love there would be no religion, no prayer. If there were no love there would be no creativity, no music, no dance, no art, no poetry. If there were no love there would be no beauty, no friendship, no happiness, no intimacy. All that is valuable in life comes through love. Love is the source of all that is nourishing and fulfilling. Love is the only heavenly phenomenon on this earth. Everything else is earthly; therefore it is only through love that one can reach to god and heavenly states of being. Without love, life becomes dull, repetitive and unfulfilling. Love: The Most Precious Gift of Life shows us that we must live with love, because that is the only way to really live. The deeper and realer your love is, the deeper and more meaningful your life is. We must think of love and life as being the same and synonymous. If love has so many blessings, why do many couples struggle and face so many difficulties in their relationships? In the second part of Love: The Most Precious Gift of Life, the root social and psychological causes of these conflicts are uncovered, and a solution for solving each problem is also presented. And in doing so it helps us to keep our relationships healthy and intimate, and enable us to embrace love, and through love, reach to our highest potential which is self-realization and enlightenment.